Six Comrades
by RedSaltire
Summary: Growing up in the Soviet Union under Stalin, they thought that it couldn't get any worse. Then the war came.
1. Chapter 1

**A/N: I do not own Azumanga Daioh. I'd like to thank LewisM333 and RunsWithBulls for helping me get this far.**

**This is an alternate universe fic, set in the Soviet Union during WW2. It is rated M for strong language and graphic descriptions of violence.**

A tribute to the people of the USSR.

Who never knew freedom, but ultimately saved our own.

Six Comrades; An Azumanga Daioh fanfiction.

It was once a grand avenue. A pragmatic affair; a wide road flanked with tall concrete buildings of a plain, post-revolution design, that widened out to leave room for a life-and-a-half sized statue of Lenin which used to watch over the hundreds who flocked by on their daily commute. Maybe there was nothing particularly inspiring about it, but the path itself was part of normality. A dull, bleak, mundane cog in the machine of routine that justified the sense of safety and stability. But the machine had been smashed beyond repair and the routine had died with it. Now the buildings were roofless, heartless shells, bombed and incinerated into skeletons by the Luftwaffe. The tarmac had been carved up by some of the stronger explosives and covered with the innards of the structures, forming ten foot high piles of rubble to contrast the blast craters. The statue had been torn apart as well; only Lenin's feet remained planted firmly onto the pedestal. The torso and limbs were now indistinguishable from any other piece of detritus and his head was now embedded in a heap of rubble thirty feet from where he originally stood, his blank granite eyes staring skywards, away from the carnage.

If you were to see this street, you had seen all of Stalingrad - every district, every block, every house, every single square foot - as it lay in September 1942.

A teenager finished scanning the street with her binoculars, having found what she was looking for, and slid halfway down the pile of rubble she had been lying on.

"I got a couple of sentries up by the plinth." She reported to the girl she was with, who nodded.

"How far's that?" She asked, passing a rifle up to her friend.

"About a hundred metres." The first girl replied as she gave her comrade a hand up the bank. "Spot or shoot, Chihiro?"

"Don't even ask, Kaorin. You're the better shot." Chihiro grabbed the binoculars and lay prone next to Kaorin, focussing her sights on the two German soldiers. Kaorin slid the rifle the rest of the way up the bank, twisting herself around slightly so as to get the optimum position for the shot and looked down her own scope.

It took a few painstaking seconds to get the focus right. Only one of them was a threat; the other one was dead, slumped over his rifle with a bullet wound in his neck. This should have made things easier for them - one clean shot and she could expect no retaliation - but as she moved her sights over the next sentry she made a critical mistake: she felt a stab of pity for her target.

He was just a boy, probably no older than she was, shivering in the cold, gripping his machine gun with white knuckles, a look of terror on his face. Lost, helpless, a thousand miles from home. This was the first time Kaorin had a living target at her mercy, and nothing could have prepared her for it. Maybe it would have been easier if the soldier was more typical of the propaganda posters: cold eyes, a look of bitter determination, a snarl playing about his lips, emanating a lust for blood and, above all, a clear threat. None of these things were present her target. She knew she couldn't kill him, not in cold blood.

"My hands are shaking." She said. Chihiro lowered her binoculars.

"What?"

"My hands are shaking. I cant take the shot." She lied, shoving the rifle towards her friend. "You do it."

Chihiro hesitated for a moment, as if about to say something, but took the rifle without a word and adjusted herself into a better position to shoot. Kaorin took the binoculars and looked towards the boy who she, mercifully, would not have to kill herself.

"Take out the one on the right, the other's not a threat."

"Gotcha."

"Right. Just remember from training. Deep breath in, one smooth motion and…"

"Fuck! Threat 15 degrees up."

"What!? Where!?"

She jolted her binoculars upwards, looking for the source of Chihiro's panic. She found something blurry in one of the windows above and slightly to the right of the plinth. She adjusted her focus and found out exactly what Chihiro was looking at. Her stomach lurched. A German was staring right at them through the telescopic sights of his rifle. She stared straight down the barrel, a sense of helplessness overcoming her.

"Shit!" She spat. "Fire, Chihiro!"

"I can't! I can't get a steady ai…" Chihiro's yell was brutally cut off with a hideous crunching noise. Her face hit the ground and she started to slide backwards off the vantage point. Kaorin cried out in horror and scrambled back down the rubble pile, coiling herself into an upright foetal position upon reaching the bottom and burying her face in her arms. She heard Chihro finish her limp decent and her body crumple to the ground. She heard the rifle clatter down somewhere near her. Then silence.

She spent near to five minutes in that position, curled in a ball, waiting for something to happen. She waited for Chihiro 's voice to whisper words of comfort from next to her, to tell her she was all right and that the bullet only hit the dust beside her. She waited for the agonized whimper of someone wounded in the shoulder, the hyperventilation and the moaned plea for help. She waited for a hand to claw at her, or even just the sound of movement, any sound at all. But there was only the distant sound of small arms fire from a battle taking place a couple of streets away. Eventually she summoned the courage to look up. She instantly regretted it. Her best friend, who she had known since her early childhood, was spread-eagled on her back. A round had hit her in the eye and taken half of her face with it. If there was someone who could look peaceful in death, she was their polar opposite. Kaorin wrenched her eyes away from the disfigured body, let out a dry sob and buried her face in her arms again. Only twelve hours active duty in the Red Army and already she had lost someone she considered a sister. The penultimate baptism of blood. And her refusal to kill was to blame. If she had just taken the shot and then retreated they could both have been alive right now. But it wouldn't be a mistake she would make twice. She pulled herself together, there would be time for remorse later, right now she had to survive. She picked up the rifle; the scope had been shattered when the bullet passed through it, rendering the rifle useless and leaving her no chance against her predator. She had no option but to flee and the only way out was into the Sniper's line of sight.

She held it off for as long as possible, trying to build some confidence. It didn't work, she was just going to have to do it and there was no point in trying to fool herself. There were only two outcomes anyway: success or death. She resigned herself to both of the outcomes. Either would lead to places she'd rather not visit; yet more pain and suffering or the absolute unknown.

_Screw it. Fate__'ll choose. _

And she ran. She ran like she had never ran before. And nothing happened. Nothing happened right up until the first sliver of hope started to form in her mind and then, in a cruel twist of fortune, everything changed. A blunt hammer-like force in the top of her thigh sent her down. A blur of ground and sky whirled past her eyes. The bitter taste of blood filled her mouth as her skull connected hard with the ground. And then her ears were saturated with the sound of pandemonium. It was in that instant she realised what she had left to live for.

She kept that one thought in her mind. It gave her the strength to drag her head up off the ground. She couldn't see anything in focus, but she could tell that mayhem was exploding around her, flashes of gunfire burst from all sides, mortars detonated at random moments, a few humanoid blurs streaked past. She propped herself upon her elbows and started to drag herself towards where she thought cover might be. She mumbled her reason to live, taking some comfort in that, and hauled herself onwards. A mortar exploded a few feet in front of her, showering her in rubble. She shook her head to dislodge some of it, but this only made her feel nauseous. This feeling overcame her and she collapsed again. She moaned and tried to prop herself up again, but she couldn't find the strength to do so.

"No…" She moaned, scraping at the earth in front of her with her fingers. "Not… Today…"

White lights burst in front of her eyes as she neared the edge of consciousness. Her leg burned. She could hear her heart pound desperately against her chest. She knew she was going to die if she blacked out but she couldn't do anything to stop it. All of her muscles had gone limp. Now there was only her mind and her last thought. The only thing that ever was beautiful amongst the grey and red of life as she had known it. She concentrated on it, trying to remember every last detail. It brought one last smile to her lips as she lay dying amongst so many others.

"Sakaki…" She whispered, as oblivion rushed.

"Kaorin?" One last shadow drew itself into her vision and then there was darkness.

* * *

"Isn't Sakaki just so cool?"

It seemed an innocent enough line to Chihiro at the time, the autumn of 1939 - their first term at high school - in the changing rooms while pulling on their PE clothes. It was true, the tall girl did seem to walk, talk and act with far more decorum than most of the other students. There was also something about her face, which only ever seemed to show assertive attentiveness or steely determination, that was almost inspiring in its own way. Or maybe it was just admiration for her athletic abilities; the way she could flawlessly and fluidly tackle any situation that presented itself to her on the sports field with a level of grace that surpassed any other. It would only be much later, after they enlisted in the sniper corps, that Kaorin would tell Chihiro the truth about how she felt for Sakaki.

"Yeah, much cooler than most of the boys." Chihiro whispered back. "But she's kinda scary too…"

"Yeah, I guess she is a little…" Kaorin looked over at the subject of their conversation, who was fixing her waist length hair. The raven-black mane seemed to hypnotise Kaorin for a moment as it danced its way back into place. Her eyes ran the length of it, wondering how anybody could manage look so beautiful even from behind, from the silk-like roots on her crown until she reached the natural tip that it made just below her beltline…

She wrenched her eyes away. She hadn't seen anything indecent, but the feeling that looking at Sakaki's underclothes gave her was one that she would have rather avoided. She kicked herself for it; it was inappropriate, if not downright filthy. And illegal.

"I've heard she's a member of the party."

Kaorin snapped out of her mental self-admonishment.

"Uh… R-really?" She stuttered.

"I'm not surprised to be honest. She looks like a communist, the strong and silent worker, y'know."

On the way out of the changing rooms Kaorin did notice the small metal hammer and sickle on Sakaki's blazer and swore to herself that she would never act on her feelings, although it didn't change them whatsoever. She did try and approach her idol after that, purely for the purposes of getting to know her. One time, she caught Sakaki alone while packing up after school had finished and, sensing an opportunity, confidently made her way towards her desk.

"Sakaki, comrade."

Sakaki turned her head and looked right into her face. All of Kaorin's confidence seemed to vanish on the spot.

"Mmm?"

Kaorin seemed to have forgotten what she was about to say. She opened her mouth, then closed it again, a blush rising in her cheeks. Sakaki looked slightly concernedly at her. After a few, mortifying moments Kaorin found her voice.

"Uh, yeah… Sakaki, I was wondering if you were part of any school clubs or anything…"

"No, I can't say I am." Sakaki turned back and finished placing a few of her books in her bag.

"Well… You see…" Kaorin continued. "I'm part of the astronomy club and…"

"Mmhmm…"

The noise that Sakaki made to show she was listening threw Kaorin right off.

"Umm…" She continued onward, realising how much of an idiot she must sound. "Yeah, anyway, we learn about the planets and constellations and… umm… stuff… And sometimes we go out stargazing. And I was just wondering if… If you wanted to…"

"If I wanted to what?" Sakaki said. Monotone. Blunt. Emotionless. She turned around and stared at Kaorin.

"Oh God! I'm s-sorry!" Kaorin stuttered, taking a step backwards, away from the girl. "I understand, it's fine, if you're just not into that thing it's OK… I'll see you later c-comrade."

She picked up her bag and ran from the room. Sakaki blinked for a moment, looking at the space Kaorin had just vanished from, then turned back around and sighed.

_I wish she'd invited me…_

She packed the rest of her things and left.

* * *

"What's the situation?"

"Full force bullet wound in the upper quadriceps, right leg."

"Christ! That isn't pretty… How's she doing?"

"The muscle's torn and the bullet has embedded itself some way into the femur, but it missed the femoral artery, so she's got a good chance of survival if we remove the round."

"A good chance?"

"… Thirty percent."

There was silence for a moment.

"Isn't she…"

"Kaorin? Yeah."

She heard their voices as if from the other side of a long tunnel but she didn't really understand what they were saying. The world felt different, she couldn't really put a finger on how or why, but she didn't try to for very long because it was too much of an effort. Everything felt… Fuzzy. It wasn't a nice feeling; it was like there was something strangling the tie between her mind and her senses. The only thing really getting through was the slight tingling down the right side of her groin and a dull rhythmic pulsing in her head. She tried to open her eyes, but they were as heavy as lead and they wouldn't budge first time round. She relaxed for a moment, then tried again, straining like a weightlifter to force the barrier open.

A shaft of phosphorescent yellow pierced her vision. Her eyes burned in the sudden light and on impulse they were forced shut again. She levered them half open with more ease than before and stared towards the sky once more. Her senses were coming back somewhat but even through the pain returning to her she could still tell that there was some buffer between her body and her brain. As the tingling in her upper leg became more pronounced, she could feel something pushing on it. Curious, she tried to lift her head up. She managed a few centimetres before it became to much of an effort for her and it fell back to the ground.

"Kaorin?"

A face appeared above her, looking concernedly into her own. Even with her vision blurred, she recognised that face.

"Sa…?" She was breathless by the end of the first syllable.

"Are you in pain, comrade?"

"My… My head…"

"Right. Try to breathe deeply."

"S… Sakaki…?"

"Yeah. It's me."

Kaorin simply stared, gazing into those ash-grey eyes. It filled her with a level of warmth and contentedness that she hadn't felt for months. Sakaki stared straight back into Kaorin's eyes, but for a very different purpose. She pulled open the eyelids of each in turn, taking note of what she saw in them as they adjusted to the light of a paraffin lamp on the ceiling. She tilted Kaorin's head to view the large wound on the side of it, then placed a finger on her neck to check her pulse.

"What's your date of birth?" Sakaki asked her. Kaorin stared blankly up at her for a few seconds.

"My… Date… Uhh…" Kaorin screwed her face up in concentration. "April… April… Uhh… Fifteenth of April… April… Twenty something… Twenty… Four… Twenty-Four… Fifteenth of April… Twenty… April Twenty four…"

Even an act of thought this simple was a major undertaking.

"She's concussed." Sakaki turned to a man crouching behind her.

"Yeah. I got that." He adjusted his glasses. "Will it make any difference, though?"

"… To what?"

"To the pain?"

"…"

"… Well, we've got some morphine. We can give her that."

Neither of them spoke for a moment. This part never became any less difficult as time went on.

"S… Sakaki…" Sakaki looked back around at Kaorin. "What happened? W… What's g-going on? What's Wrong?"

She was still amnesic. That wasn't going to make it any easier. Sakaki shifted her gaze, looking straight into the injured girl's eyes and tried the best to look confident.

"Kaorin, comrade." She grabbed Kaorin's shoulder, and stared harder. "I promise you that everything…"

She paused for a moment and her grip wavered slightly, but she managed to regain her composure.

"Everything's going to be OK…"


	2. Chapter 2

Six Comrades

CHAPTER II

Day turned to night and there was a lull in the volume of fire raining down on the Red Army division pinned down in one of the tenements near to where Kaorin fell. From their count, there were only two Germans still firing on them from the opposite block of flats - one machine gunner and one sniper - but that was enough to keep them stubbornly behind cover, occasionally popping up to take a solitary random shot.

_Shit, this guy's insane._

Kagura ducked back behind the ground floor window she was occupying. She had only missed the boy manning the _Maschinengewehr_ by inches, and he hadn't even flinched before turning his weapon on her position, murder in his eyes. Bullets riddled the wall behind her and splinters of concrete were blasted off the windowsill as she pulled herself as close to the ground as possible until he turned his attention elsewhere. He must have spent at least thirty rounds in his attempt on her. She regained her composure and slid the magazine out of her rifle, checking the ammunition she had left in it, then slotted it back in and waited. Eventually she heard what she was listening for, a hollow click which echoed between the buildings. It meant the sentry's magazine was empty. She stood up again, trying to get a good aim at him, but before she could do so, a chunk of concrete exploded from the side of the window and threw her off balance. On impulse she dived back down.

"You idiot." Said someone from beside her. She jumped and looked around, the soldier sounded female, but she couldn't see her face due to the lack of light in the room.

"… What the fu…!" Her yell was cut off by the sound of machinegun bullets ricocheting off the windowsill once more.

"You had a good second or two to shoot in while he worked the bolt. Why the hell did you take cover again?"

Kagura stared at her furiously.

"I'd like to see you do any better."

"Give me your rifle." The woman replied without hesitation.

"Use your own!"

"It jammed."

"Well I'm not giving you mine."

"That's a direct order, corporal."

Kagura squinted at her. She could tell that the woman was not wearing the peaked cap of an officer, which meant that she still had a right to question her authority.

"What's your rank?"

"… Private."

"… Are you fucking joking!"

"Listen, nobody else was willing to lend me their rifle…"

"Yeah, that's really surprising." Kagura cut her off mockingly.

"… But I'm a sniper for Christ's sake. I'm trained to sort out these kind of situations."

Kagura hesitated for a moment. If this soldier really was a sniper, then it would be stupid not to lend her the rifle.

"You've got nothing to lose either way." The woman added.

"I only have three rounds left."

"I'll give it back with one. That's a promise."

Kagura held it off for a moment longer, then grudgingly passed the it over to her.

The woman positioned herself under the window and ran her hands over the rifle.

"… Is this a Tokarev?" She asked.

"Yeah."

"… I'd have preferred a bolt action."

"Beggars can't be choosers. Now shut up and kill them."

"Roger that."

She stood up and fired out of the window. There was a yell of pain and the sound of machine gun fire stopped abruptly. She crouched back down and removed the bayonet from the end of the rifle.

"And now, if you'd be so kind as to pass me your hat." She said.

"My hat?"

"You'll see why."

Kagura took her fur hat off and handed it to the woman, who promptly shoved the bayonet through it.

"Hey!"

"We're at war. Deal with it."

She slid the bayonet back down so that the tip was only just showing through the top and then handed the bayonet with the hat on it back to Kagura.

"Now, take the end of the bayonet start raising the hat past the window."

She looked reproachfully at the woman, but did so. She thought she knew where this was going. The woman started to slide the barrel of the rifle up at the same rate.

"Now if this guy is stupid enough…" She muttered.

Kagura's hand was suddenly jerked backwards as the force of a bullet blasted her hat into pieces and shattered the bayonet. The woman instantly jumped up again and took aim. There was another crack and then, a second later, a sickening crunch. She lowered the rifle and laughed.

"That'll teach him to lean that far out a window."

Kagura walked over to the tattered remains of her hat and picked up; it was in no wearable condition. She strode across to the woman and tapped her shoulder.

"My rifle."

Still staring out at the two men she had just killed, she thrust the rifle back at the corporal. Kagura took it.

"And your hat." Kagura continued.

"Fuck off."

"That's an order private."

"You can shove your orders; I just saved your life." The woman turned to face her. The moon bathed half of it in an eerie light that cast her scars into relief and reflected off her eye so that it glowed white. It gave her the look of a ghost. Kagura missed a beat.

"…Tomo?"

* * *

Even before the war, my life was a battle; a struggle against a dismissive fate laid upon me by the circumstances of my birth. Maybe they just assumed that by coming into this world, I had used up my allotted luck for this lifetime; I was fortunate to be alive, given the biological parents chosen for me. My mother gave me up the day I was born; she was sixteen, working to support her own mother and deserted by my father after he realised she was pregnant. He was a generation older and had fooled her into believing he loved her; in reality he was only after one thing and once satisfied, he moved on to find some other girl naïve enough to believe his hoax. I could have been finished at that point; abortion was still legal back then, available to all, regardless of circumstances. But she still held on to religion's sinking ship and gave birth to me, considering it her duty to God. She brought me into a world, but it was a world devoid of love and she had made it clear that she never wanted to. I can never be grateful to her.

I was born on the 21st of January, 1924; The day that Lenin died. In the past I thought this bore some significance. Sometimes I was convinced that I _was _Lenin, reincarnated into a lowly orphan to begin a new rise to power. Such optimism; by nature I was a rebel, not a leader. I'm sure that those who looked after me had bets on whether I'd end in the back of a Black Maria before my adulthood. I was brought up in an orphanage situated in an old church building, raised by women who used to be nuns. Suffice to say God was ever present, usually in the same sense that he was present to my mother. The love that the women bore me was an arid, dutiful attention given more for the gratification of their deity than for the children's sake. They fed us and clothed us to the best of their ability, but it ended there. No substitute for a mother's love, or so I've heard. My mother didn't even care enough to give me a name, so the sisters did. Nothing special. The placeholder Takinova as a surname and, for daily use, the feminine of the biblical Thomas: Thomasina. To anyone but them, I'm Tomo.

The obstacles in my life did not stop at not being loved. As soon as I went to school, I realised that everyone tries to have a go at the orphans. I never had a problem sorting them out. I just hit the bastards and got on with my life. Well, I never really got on with my life. Given little consideration amidst forty other children in my orphanage, I had to learn to behave spontaneously in order to get attention. By the age of five I had mastered that art and it wasn't just tied to the place where I ate and slept. Whatever amount of energy I gained from the scarce amount of food I received went directly into being hyperactive. If nobody would actively acknowledge the orphan kid, then she would make it so that she was impossible to ignore. Eventually those who tried to bully me became docile and warned anyone else thus:

"Don't try anything with that orphan, she's crazy."

By the time I was about nine or ten I had grown a conscience, but I tried my best to ignore it. The world was out to get me, and if I showed any sign of weakness, it would swoop in and claim me right there and then. I would never care for anyone. I would never befriend anyone. I was unwanted anyway, they would just reject me like anyone else so there wasn't any point in trying. It took another victim of viciousness to change my mind.

Her name was Koyomi, I knew that much from class. She was the quiet kid that sat alone at the back and did her work, sat alone in the cafeteria to eat her watery broth, and sat alone in the playground, watching the others play. I knew she was a loner, I might have even felt slightly sorry for her, but I did nothing. It wasn't until a girl from the year above started poking fun at her one day that I really took notice. It started with her teasing the younger girl about her glasses. She tried to ignore it, turning and attempting to walk away. The girl simply pulled her back.

"Where do you think you're going?" She had said. Puffing herself up to look imposing, another couple of the boys from her year were cheering for a fight from the sidelines. Eventually the taunting did turn physical. The bigger girl snatched her glasses from my classmate's face and pushed her to the ground. She ran away, laughing and taunting as Koyomi picked herself off the ground and stumbled after her, begging her to give them back and in a matter of moments this affair gained a following. People of all ages and years pointing, laughing, taunting, jeering from the sidelines as the girl staggered behind her crying from the futility and humiliation, occasionally falling due to the fact she couldn't see an inch in front of her face. The sickening cruelty of it all, the fact that nobody was willing to act in defence of this hopeless child, spurred me so that, for the first time in my life, I was prepared to put another person before myself. At that point I didn't care how much of a beating I would get for interfering with the hierarchy, I didn't care about how my dignity might be affected by the outcome. All I saw was the fight I had to give on that girl's behalf.

"Hey! Ugly!" I strode towards the pair. A hush fell over the people watching. The larger girl turned slowly towards me, a look of murder on her face.

"…What did you call me?" She said, a quiet rage cutting through her words.

"I called you ugly." I said confidently. "Why don't you come and have a go at me instead?"

The girl glared at me. I glared back. We kept this standoff going for at least twenty seconds before I spoke again.

"Or are you too _scared _to hit someone who can fight back?"

At this, She gave a roar, dropping the glasses in her hand, and launched herself at me. I was a lightweight, I was younger than her, I was slower, smaller and not as good with my fists; I was never going to win. She pinned me right there and knocked seven bells out of me. I managed to kick her in the stomach about twice, but that probably did nothing except make her even more angry. It lasted for about three minutes in total before she ran out of stamina, then she picked herself of me and spat on my face before walking away, virtually unharmed.

Eventually the crowd around me dispersed with snorts of laughter at "the craziness of that orphan", leaving only one person staring down at my battered form. The girl with glasses. She opened her mouth, trying to find some words to express herself. Eventually all she managed to say was "Thank you."

"Save it." I had said. "I didn't do it for you. I did it 'coz it was right."

"OK, but thank you anyway."

I just grumbled and tried to push myself back to my feet. Koyomi extended a hand towards me. I hesitated, then took it. Mumbling a word of thanks in return.

She would become the first, and best, friend I ever made.

* * *

Eight years later, and only a couple of miles from that school playground, Koyomi Mizustien, usually known as Yomi, was fighting for her life in the ruin of the city she grew up in. Needless to say, she was no longer the well-fed, rose-cheeked, shy girl that she was as a pre-pubescent youngster; war had made her lean, muscular and had worn every inch of exposed skin until it had the durability of leather and the complexion of the grit around her. She had cut her hair so that it only reached an inch over the base of her skull and now her glasses were scratched and cracked around the rims, nullifying the vast majority of her innocent cuteness. She gave off the impression of toughness; now only a fool would mock her for her visual aids, and that was without looking into her mindset. The rank of sergeant on her collar was telling enough. She had joined the army with a rank less, having trained in field tactics before the battle had begun, and had earned the third green triangle on her lapel tag within days.

In short: she was the opposite of pathetic.

Her platoon had been taking fire for over twelve hours and they had retreated to the relative safety of a semi-intact block of tenements. They had set themselves up on the two floors that remained standing. This had swung the survival rate in favour of the Soviets slightly, and the only casualty so far was herself.

"Get a medic." She said to the corporal beside her, after getting over the initial shock of having a shard of shrapnel the size of a dinner plate tear an inch deep gash along the length of her upper arm. The boy had simply nodded, probably too nauseous at the sight to do anything but, and crawled off in the direction of the nearest medic. She had kept firing, ignoring the burning pain in her arm and the gush of blood that poured out of the wound every time she worked the bolt on her Mosin. She wasn't going to let the fascists beat her that easily. If she was going to die, then she was going to die in the process of destroying the bastards who had made her people suffer, not in a medical ward from blood poisoning. Not fighting was never an option for her; by German standards she was subhuman on every level: Soviet, Slavic and, above all, Semitic. She was probably one of the few that had found killing the enemy enjoyable; to her, every face in the grey garbed masses was one of those at the Nuremburg rallies, one of the faces amongst the thousands that shouted in glee and triumph as Hitler spat venom at the Jewish people. By the time the medic arrived by her side she had finished another one.

"Morning Sakaki." She said cheerfully, not bothering to look around.

"Actually, it's Ohyamov." The assistant medic set down a bottle of white spirit and a small tin case. "I'll need you to take your jacket off."

Yomi shrugged off the padded overcoat that kept the Russian Autumn off her back, shivering slightly as she exposed her arms to the elements.

"It's so cold." She said absentmindedly. "Has it always been this cold?"

"Don't know, sergeant." Ohyamov said, sliding his glasses back up to the bridge of his nose and looking down at her wound. "I'm going to apply some antiseptic, it'll sting for a moment."

"Go ahead." Yomi continued staring down her iron sights, waiting for another German to make a mistake that would leave him susceptible to a 7.62mm round in the first available vital organ, trying to ignore the further smarting on her arm as Ohyamov cleaned the wound with the white spirit. She fired again, making the medic jump slightly.

"Sergeant, I think we should take you away from the action for a while." He said, repositioning his glasses which had slid back down his nose.

"As long as my arm's working, I'm gonna be fighting, private." She shifted her arm slightly to pull the bolt on her rifle once again and yet more blood streamed out, undoing Ohyamov's work.

"That's not an option. It'll take more than a bandage to close a wound that deep."

Yomi swore and shuffled back from her drill hole.

"Make it quick. I've got fascists to kill."

Finding that the basement of the building hadn't caved in from the bombing, the two medics set up what little equipment they had in there. Only one of the mats laid out on the floor was occupied, but there were more than the four of them in the room; unable to find a better place, about seven or eight that the duo were unable to save lay by the far wall. They had no spare blankets to cover them, the best they were able to do was close their eyes in an attempt to make them look more peaceful. Sakaki was sitting on a chair next to the patient, gazing a thousand miles through the floor; she didn't notice them walk in.

"Take a seat on the mat." Ohyamov said, pointing towards the nearest one. Before turning to Sakaki. "Comrade, we've got another one."

The senior medic snapped out of her trance and grabbed her toolkit.

"You're the second old friend we've had in today." Ohyamov said, pointing towards the teenager on the other mat.

"… Kaorin?"

"Yeah."

"What's she got."

"Took a bullet to the thigh."

"Sounds painful."

Sakaki opened her tin and started pulling out surgical implements.

"What's the situation?" She asked.

"Laceration in the triceps." Ohyamov turned back to his superior. "Caused by shrapnel."

"What're my chances?" Yomi asked, looking at her wound more with a look of interest than anything else.

"Short term death is unlikely." Ohyamov said. "But if it gets infected you could be in some serious shit."

Sakaki had finished unpacking by now and was polishing a vicious-looking curved needle with some alcohol.

"So I'm gonna need stitches." Yomi said, looking warily down at the thing.

"I'm afraid so." Ohyamov looked apologetically at the patient. "And we gave the last of the morphine to Kaorin."

"I don't grudge her it." Yomi smiled hollowly. "I can probably take the pain."

"Cigarette?"

"Oh fuck yes."

Ohyamov pulled out one of his own ration and placed it in Yomi's mouth while Sakaki cleaned the wound again. He struck a match off the concrete floor and lit it for her.

"Thanks."

"It won't do much."

"… I know."

Sakaki, determinedly avoiding eye contact, began, stabbing the needle through the lower end of the wound. Yomi yelped in pain and clenched her fists, sending yet more blood streaming out of the wound. She took a few deep breaths and lifted her gaze towards the ceiling, blowing smoke at the paraffin lamp.

"SHIIIIIITTTT!" She moaned. "The fucking shrapnel wasn't this painful!"

"The shrapnel hit you at speed and when you were full of adrenalin." Ohyamov explained.

"Fuck! Don't slow down. Just get it over with!"

Sakaki nodded in acknowledgment and pushed the needle through the opposite side of the wound then pulled the thread through.

"How many more?" Yomi said through gritted teeth. She had already sucked her cigarette to near the dog-end.

"Half centimetre gaps into, what, sixteen centimetres."

"If I die after all this I'll fucking _kill _you both!"

"You're not going to die."

"One way or another… JEESSUUSS!" Yomi spat the last of the cigarette out. "We've all got to die."

She started panting, sweat beading on her forehead. She threw back her head and gave an insane, mirthless shout of laughter.

"And I'm gonna go to hell. I'm gonna burn for eternity for all the shit I've done. But fuck knows I'd do it all… SHIIIIT! All over again."

She stopped for a few moments to catch her breath before turning and looking Ohyamov straight in the eyes.

"And you know what? I'd only change one thing."

* * *

"What happened to your spotter?" Kagura and Tomo had not moved from their position since Tomo had taken out the two Germans. As night fell they retreated to one of the corners of the wrecked building, in the hope that nobody could take them from behind. They had made some light talk over a tin of cold beef stew; debating the effectiveness of the semi-automatic SVT rifle over the bolt-action Mosin-Nagat. After about thirty minutes of this, they both agreed to disagree and spent the next five minutes in silence, each of them wondering if bringing up a personal topic would be too painful. Kagura eventually posed the question, she knew that scout-snipers moved around in pairs and Tomo didn't have anyone else with her. She felt stupid immediately after asking; the answer was probably the most obvious one.

"I never had one." Tomo said. Kagura nodded mournfully for a moment until the reality of what she said sank in.

"Wait… So you're telling me…?"

"I'm not a sniper. I lied." Tomo didn't look at her, instead she continued inspecting the Mosin she had found beside one of Kagura's dead comrades. Kagura spluttered for a moment.

"You idiot! Why the hell did you tell me you were!" She whispered angrily. Even if the sound of gunfire was distant, it was wise to keep your voice lowered.

"Because I'm a good shot. That's why."

"But you could have missed them!"

"A sniper could have missed. What's your point?"

"You…" Kagura, paused, glaring at her for a moment, unable to think of the right words. "You know what I mean. A sniper's trained… Y'know…"

Tomo had finished checking her rifle by now. She loaded a stripper clip into the magazine and cocked it, then flicked the safety on and simply stared at it. She said nothing.

"Then how can I know they weren't just lucky shots." Kagura continued.

"… I know."

"That's not good enough."

Tomo turned her face towards her for the first time. The sun had crept its way into the sky and gave her face a more natural glow than the moon and starlight had. Kagura blinked. Tomo's face lacked any mirth whatsoever; a sight alien to anyone who knew her before the war.

"You want to know?"

Kagura nodded, her face relaxing somewhat.

"When I chose to join the army about two months ago, I had no specialisation, no particular academic skill, no previous training; nothing of much use except a body willing for use as cannon fodder. So that's what they did. They used us as cannon fodder; a whole division. Just, grab a rifle, they said, or a bayonet if there isn't enough of them to go round and charge that machine gun. Tactics lifted straight from the Great War, y'know. The head of our division actually was a Captain who fought the Germans last time round. The bloody fool even took the front row for the charge.

"So that's what we did. More people than I could count just ran at that one platoon of SS, and they cut us to pieces. I managed to get a rifle and then I just jumped behind the nearest available shelter and started firing back at them. I was taking each shot straight after I'd done the bolt action and I didn't miss one. Eight men in about thirty seconds. And then it was only me left. The one survivor. I've been living it rough for the last week or so, scavenging off dead soldiers and killing as many Nazis as I can, still never missing one; then my rifle jammed a few hours back while I was caught up in the crossfire earlier. If it wasn't for that, I wouldn't be here now."

"I'm… Sorry." Kagura looked away. Tomo went back to staring at her rifle. Neither of them said anything for the moment.

"I'm probably marked as "missing in action" at the moment." She said offhandedly. "If she looks me up she might assume the worst…"

"Who?"

"Yomi."

"Ah."

"That's if she didn't die in the bombing."

"…"

"D'you know if any of our group are still alive?"

"Aside from you and me…" Kagura sucked air through her teeth. "No idea."

Silence again. They watched the last of the stars vanish for a few minutes before Tomo spoke up.

"Well, you're an optimist, aren't you? Say something optimistic."

"Well… Chiyo and Osaka were probably evacuated; Sakaki'll probably be working on the land; if Yomi's joined the army then I'm sure her common sense will keep her alive; Kaorin's probably working somewhere in the East; her friend, whose name I forget, is probably working with her."

"And summarise…"

"They're safe, Tomo, they're safe."

"I hope you're right."

"Cross my heart and hope to die."

A comet streaked across the last of the western dark as night was swallowed by the sun.

**A/N: I will update, but don't expect consistency. Sometimes it might be a week between updates, sometimes it might be a month.**


	3. Chapter 3

**A/N: Well, I've finally updated. This chapter is slightly shorter, but I hope it will be easier to follow. Special thanks goes to Raro6511, as well as the aforementioned others, for proofreading.**

CHAPTER III

_A photograph is not like any other medium; it cannot lie. While books, films and paintings can be modelled around falsehoods, created by the artist to prove a nonexistent point, the journalist's camera records without bias, yet it can tell as vivid a story as any magnum opus of any other form, maybe even holding a magnitude that surpasses them._

* * *

Late September. The invading forces had touched on the concrete heart of Stalingrad; by now little more than an open grave for the civilians who had died in the bombing. Stalin's plan to fight for a living city had already come to it's bloody conclusion; the only living things left to protect were the rats, who had emerged triumphant from their sewers to feast on the decaying flesh of their oppressors. At least the dead had nothing left to fear. The worst had happened early, before they could see the world around them blasted apart.

"Oh Christ…" The smell of rotting flesh became too much for one of the eight soldiers lying in the bomb crater. He forfeited all resistance to the spike of nausea driven into him and vomited with a ferocity that gave him cramp from his neck to his abdomen. The captain next to him patted his back.

"Get it all out. It'll be easier."

Even after emptying the contents of his stomach, he continued to retch. Eventually his convulsions slowed and he collapsed into the rancid puddle. A few of the others turned pale, but their stomachs held. They waited for around thirty seconds longer.

"Right." The captain stuck her head above the rim of the crater. "We're going to take that building over there. So, on my mark…"

She looked left and right a couple of times, then mumbled "now" and set off towards the block of flats, half crouching, half running. Scuttling in the same fashion, the rest of her team followed, the sick-splattered private stumbling along in their wake. They too were rats, caught in the open ready to be slaughtered like vermin if fortune abandoned them. But luck still had some favour for them; they reached the tenement opposite without event and slid into the shadowy corridors beyond, slowing down to a creep and raising their weapons to their shoulders. The captain halted for a few seconds and gestured to them to split off - one group to capture the upper floors and one group to search the lower rooms - before leading the former up the rickety wooden staircase and onto a thin landing. One quick scan of the first apartment showed nothing of interest. One dead civilian with a bullet wound in his head. The second apartment housed a dead SS. Up a second flight and they found another on the landing and another two in one of the apartments, lying on an bunks with their necks slashed. Up one floor further and in the penultimate room they found what looked to be another late combatant, but when they approached it, it gave an agonized moan and a hand made a feeble attempt to grab the captain's boot. She kicked it away.

"Once we've checked the last one," She muttered to a thickly built sergeant as she led the way back out. "Put him out his misery."

Unlike the others, the last door was closed. The captain lowered her Thomson and took up a crouching position by the handle, nodding to the sergeant, who in turn nodded and tightened his grip on his own submachine gun, while the private on the other side reversed his hold on his rifle. She counted them down with her fingers, then turned the handle, the private drew back and slammed the butt of his gun with all his strength into the door, which burst open.

"**Rote Armee!" **The sergeant yelled as he swept his sights over the small room. When nothing happened he walked tentatively over the threshold, continuing to sweep. His gaze brought him to a wardrobe at the side.

"Check that." He told the private, who obliged, walking over to one side of it, so that he would not be in the man's sights, and wrenched the door open.

At first glance it could have been mistaken for a pile of clothes lying crumpled on the bottom, but a second glance showed it quivered. The eyes would then be drawn to the left hand, wrapped around the right leg, drawing them in close to the chest, and the bloodstained hunting knife in it's grasp. And then, to utterly prove it human, the muffled female voice that whimpered from between the knees.

"**Ermorde mich nicht…"**

* * *

_Nearly three years previously._

Sliding her fingers along the implement and finding the lever, she pulled it with a degree of fluidity that suggested she had done the same thing many times before. She slid her right hand down the length of it, finding a hold towards the front, and crouched down onto one knee, aiming towards the yet-ignorant dove that was plodding around few feet away, searching for food. She raised it to her left eye, the stronger eye by her reckoning, and looked down her sights, waiting for the right moment. Her index finger found the trigger. The dove stopped pecking at the ground and twisted its head around, as if aware of the predator spying on it. She licked her lips. The bird seemed to feel this minor tremor and spread its wings in alarm.

_Click._

Osaka lowered the camera from her face. She wouldn't be able to tell until she developed the film, but she was sure she had just caught it taking off. She smiled to herself and pulled the lever again to load fresh film into the exposure zone before looking around to find some other moment to preserve in black and white.

"I think you missed it."

Osaka whirled about to face Tomo, who was lounging on a park bench nearby, her smile sliding off her face.

"Y'think?" She said nervously.

"Yeah, I'm pretty sure it was out of range before you pressed the shutter." She said, leaning back and exhaling in mock sorrow.

"Don't listen to her, Osaka." Yomi said, giving Tomo a reproachful look. "I reckon you got it."

"Yeah, I thought I did too." She said, a relieved smile on her face as she standing up. "Well, if that's two of us, it's a majority; we're right and Tomo's overruled."

"I don't think that's how it works…" Yomi muttered, before being cut off by her hyperactive comrade.

"Christ! I'm always outvoted!" Tomo stood up and kicked the bench a few times. Yomi sighed and stood up as well.

"Stop overreacting." She said quietly as she walked past.

"And now you're gonna oppress me, are you?!" Tomo yelled back. "I know I'm a minority, but I have rights too!"

Osaka had met up with the two friends - if that was the right word - while she was out exploring this new city; she had moved to Stalingrad from her Ukrainian hometown of Fastiv a couple of months previously. Her father had been transferred due to his work, to her recollection he was a police officer of some description, but she didn't mind too much; her schoolmates had tended to treat her as an outcast and made fun of her for her peculiarity. She had brought her only friend with her: the camera her father had given her about four years previously. In that time she had amassed over a thousand photographs and she had no intention of stopping yet.

They walked on, Tomo still rambling at Yomi, Osaka gazing off at other reaches of the park. Trees, grass and statues depicting the struggle of the workers; not dissimilar from Fastiv. The main difference was probably the comparative abundance of birds. There were about ten times as many here as she would normally see at any one time back home, where they had been hunted close to extinction. She would have to tell her father of this; with such a plentiful supply of fresh meat they might not go hungry here.

Tomo had grown silent by now, and was walking along side Osaka with Yomi on her other side. She had raised her arms to place her hands behind her head in a juvenile way, the spring in her step was carefree, the mischief was still in her eyes. Osaka had been staring at her for a few seconds before she noticed.

"Umm… Osaka…?"

"Tomo, comrade, why are you so happy?" Osaka asked, gazing at her.

"… Am I?" Tomo looked confusedly at her.

"Yeah, you look happier than anyone else I've ever met."

Tomo stared at her for a few seconds.

"How happy is normal?"

"Everyone back home looked kinda sad…" She stopped in her tracks for a few seconds and plunged a hand into her thick overcoat, bringing it back out with a couple of photographs in her grip. She passed one to each of them.

"Have a look at these."

* * *

_An old man, bedraggled grey hair and chest length beard, slumps on a park bench, his arms parallel to his thighs, staring at the ground by his feet. He dresses in black, full black, from his hat to his worn leather boots. The only other thing you can see is his eyes, glazed with memories, too overworked to bring any moisture for his pain._

* * *

"I don't know who he is." Osaka answered Tomo's question before it was asked. "I couldn't bear the thought of letting him suffer alone, so I carry him around in my pocket."

Tomo wasn't sure what to make of that logic, so she said nothing. She finished looking over it and swapped with Yomi.

* * *

_Two boys sit side by side on a doorstep, dressed in rags. Their faces are shrunken, skull-like, every bone is visible through their flesh. It continues down their bare arms, devoid of muscle, hands held together by nothing more than the webbing of their skin. Their legs are deformed by rickets and it looks like they've lost a couple of their toes to frostbite. You feel it through their eyes, though. They stare straight into the lens, a mixture of longing and resentment in their gaze. It is hard to pin down their ages, but "pre-pubescent" would be a reasonable guess._

* * *

"… And you took these?" Yomi asked quietly.

"Yeah. There wasn't much else to do back home."

Tomo continued to stare at the picture of the two boys; the look on their faces had sobered her energetic atmosphere. She flicked over to the back of the picture and looked at the date inscribed there, some two years back; if they had continued like that, it was all too possible that they had starved to death by now.

"Who… Were they." She asked in a voice lower still.

"They were two boys from the orphanage near where I lived." Osaka said sadly. "Two of the few people who were nice to me. They died a couple of months after that."

Tomo handed the picture back to her, her hands shaking somewhat.

"W-was this common…?"

"You mean the hunger?" Osaka slid the photograph back in her pocket. "Yeah. We all got it. But the orphanage got it worse."

Tomo had heard rumours of the famines in the Ukraine before, but this was the first time she had seen any evidence. She clenched her fists.

_The orphanage got it worse._

Of course they did. Ever the underdogs, the worthless children starved of everything but pain, the first in the firing line when the scarcities arrived. The injustice of it all hit her in that moment. It was all she could do to stop herself screaming in rage.

"Osaka," Yomi whispered seriously. "You shouldn't carry pictures like that around. You _know _what'll happen."

"But it's the truth…"

"The truth is inconvenient, comrade." Tomo said bitterly. She scraped a stone off the ground and hurled it at a nearby pigeon, which took off in alarm. It didn't dampen her rage any.

"Don't say stuff like that, you fool!" Yomi whispered angrily. "Do both of you idiots have a fucking death wish?!"

Upon the word "death" the colour drained from Osaka's face. They walked in silence for a while, the growling of state trucks growing ever stronger as they neared the outskirts of the park.

* * *

"Nyamo" Kurosova was not the perfect soldier. Although she was agile, muscular, quick thinking, cool, collected, determined, trustworthy and a natural leader, she had the critical flaw of being human; having feelings can break a perfectly good warrior. Most countries throughout history got around this by training exclusively males from early adulthood, isolating and nurturing their already copious supply of testosterone and force-feeding them rage until they could no longer empathise with the suffering of their fellow humans.

Kurosova was neither a man, nor trained in this way, having been recruited at the last second to defend Stalingrad from the invading forces, and therefore she could not help the maternal instinct inside her kicking in when she saw the girl she once taught huddled in front of her, sheet white and shivering, her jaw clamped like a vice on a rapidly depleting cigarette. She had removed her own greatcoat and draped it over the girl's shoulders before sitting down beside her. She waited for some sign of recognition or gratitude, but none came. The girl seemed to be encased in her own living nightmare.

"Osaka…?" Nyamo tried to place a hand on her former student's shoulder, but on the point of contact the girl gave a violent shudder and moaned. She retracted her arm quickly, but repeated the word, a little more forcefully.

"Osaka."

Osaka slowly turned her head to stare at the captain. A large clump of tobacco ash dropped off the end of her roll.

"Kurosova…?"

Nyamo's gaze swept over the girl. She had a black eye and bruises all down the left side of her face. She was dressed only in her underclothes, short sleeves and legs that showed the extent of the scratches and bruising and on her arms and upper thighs. There were rope burns on her wrists and ankles, and something that looked horribly like a bite mark on her neck. She had a vague idea of the answer even before she asked the question.

"What happened?"

Osaka stared at her for a few seconds, then burst into tears and fell into the captain's arms. The dog-end fell from her mouth and extinguished on the damp ground. Not surprised by the reaction, Nyamo gave no resistance and sat there, one hand around Osaka's back, rubbing it gently. It carried on like this for about a minute, then Osaka's breathing slowed and she sobbed out a reply through the captain's shoulder.

"I've killed five people."

**A/N: All reviews or comments welcome.**


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